It’s natural to feel vulnerable at a time like that.
Eggs, face, salad, foot, et cetera.
Actually, now I can’t make up my mind on where this thread really belongs. Tell you what, I’ll keep my eye on it and if it gets back into the topic of the game - rather than the twenty different directions it’s already going - I’ll yoink it back to the Game Room and leave a redirect.
Well if you don’t have a good partner, then you better have a really good hand.
I don’t want to play ruff, but it really does belong in the Game Room. Back it goes.
twicks, who was just starting to get good – well. competent – when her weekly game fell apart
These days I play a few rubbers of party bridge a year, when visiting my family. Kinda weird to play with the parents, who only play Goren. No weak 2s, no transfers, none of that. My mother still insists on opening 4 card majors from time to time :eek:
Goren, huh? Well, that’s how their generation is. It might as well be whist. Personally, without transfers, I’d always be defending.
I just spent the weekend in Fort Wayne IN (no, truly!) with two new partners – a much more experienced man that I met there and played in open pairs, and a woman that I’ve played previously in a four-person team, with my wife as partner. But my wife’s away, so I’m playing with various new partners for a few weeks.
But most players who get anywhere these days are very competitive – not vulnerable, they’ll bid with a handful of points and very weak long suit – so it’s easy to get into a very dubious contract like that. So the trick, of course, is to know just how far to go in a competitive situation like that, and stop: that will frustrate the opposition, especially if you’ve got enough resources to double them.
I’m in a similar position Guizot, and it’s sort of frustrating. I’ve not been playing long - 2 years, and feel like I’m really hitting a plateau. I either need to progress with a regular partner and become good, or I’ll drift away from the game. The local club seems split between venerable established partnerships and perpetual novices, not much middle ground - players who are on an learning curve.
One good thing is that the Acol club on BBO is very good (4 card majors galore :)). Well run and a good bunch of people, it’s a good online environment to play Bridge in if you’re of an Acol persuasion.
Dude, if you’re that easily pushed into bidding slams going down three, I’d dump you too! 
Two of my favorite bridge books deal with this topic: “The Law of Total Tricks” and “The Modern Losing Trick Count”, both by Ron Klinger.
Larry Cohen also penned a popular book on the LOTT, “To Bid Or Not To Bid”, but I like Klinger’s presentation better (Cohen’s book has a more conversational tone).
Often competitive bidding boils down to figuring out (a) if you have a fit with partner, (b) how high you’ll be willing to bid in that strain, and (c) if the opponents go past that, do you have enough to double on? The rest is checking for slam options, or trying to tempt them into bidding to a point where you’ll lay the hammer down.
Has the play really come to this? Has the game devolved into such a cold, heartless calculation of simply counting losers? Has the fit become so mechanical, the double so cynical?
I’ve had the same experience. I wonder if it’s worth it to go to a brick-and-mortar club. It’s hard enough online.
All bidding is, is a guideline to painting a picture of your hand and partner’s. Even the LOTT is just a tool in the toolbox. But yes, in essence, the whole point of constructive bidding is to figure out where the losers are between your hand and partner’s, so as to get to the right contract. Not so much “counting losers” like the Walrus counts points*, but exactly WHERE those losers are – you can have xxx in a suit and still make a slam if your partner has a singleton or void, for example.
And the whole point of destructive bidding is to determine when your opponents are likely to need some extended bidding sequences to find that information out, and deny them that room.
Because in the end duplicate bridge is not about bidding to the most tricks you can take or even necessarily getting the biggest plus score you can, it’s about scoring the highest probable value on the hand – depending on the scoring, convincing your opponents to play in 4S when they’re cold for 6S may be just as good as bidding 5H or 6H yourself, and quite probably safer.
*If you don’t get the reference to who “The Walrus” is as a bridge player, and no it’s not John Lennon, go and get a copy of “Bridge In The Menagerie” and its sequel books, by Victor Mollo. BEST… BRIDGE BOOKS… EVER! (Hilarious and enlightening at the same time!)